LEARNING.
There came a charming new life into the house of the Lothrops. Madge
and Lois were learning to draw, and Lois was prosecuting her French
studies with a zeal which promised to carry all before it. Every minute
of her time was used; every opportunity was grasped; "Numa Pompilius"
and the dictionary were in her hands whenever her hands were free; or
Lois was bending over her drawing with an intent eye and eager fingers.
Madge kept her company in these new pursuits, perhaps with less
engrossing interest; nevertheless with steady purpose and steady
progress. Then Mrs. Barclay received from New York a consignment of
beautiful drawings and engravings from the best old masters, and some
of the best of the new; and she found her hands becoming very full. To
look at these engravings was almost a passion with the two girls; but
not in the common way of picture-seeing. Lois wanted to understand
everything; and it was necessary, therefore, to go into wide fields of
knowledge, where the paths branched many ways, and to follow these
various tracks out, one after another. This could not be done all in
talking; and Lois plunged into a very sea of reading. Mrs. Barclay was
not obliged to restrain her, for the girl was thorough and methodical
in her ways of study, as of doing other things; however, she would
carry on two or three lines of reading at once. Mrs. Barclay wrote to
her unknown correspondent, "Send me 'Sismondi';" "send me Hallam's
'Middle Ages';" "send me 'Walks about Kome';" "send me 'Plutarch's
Lives';" "send me D'Aubigné's 'Réformation';" at last she wrote, "Send
me Ruskin's 'Modern Painters'." "I have the most enormous intellectual
appetite to feed that ever I had to do with in my life. And yet no
danger of an indigestion. Positively, Philip, my task is growing from
day to day delightful; it is only when I think of the end and aim of it
all that I get feverish and uneasy. At present we are going with 'a
full sail and a flowing sea'; a regular sweeping into knowledge, with a
smooth, easy, swift occupying and taking possession, which gives the
looker-on a stir of wondering admiration. Those engravings were a great
success; they opened for me, and at once, doors before which I might
have waited some time; and now, eyes are exploring eagerly the vast
realms those doors unclose, and hesitating only in which first to set
foot. You may send the 'Stones of Venice' too; I foresee that it will
be useful; and the 'Seven Lamps of Architecture.' I am catching my
breath, with the swiftness of the way we go on. It is astonishing, what
all clustered round a view of Milan Cathedral yesterday. By the way,
Philip,--no hurry,--but by and by a stereoscope would be a good thing
here. Let it be a little hand-glass, not a great instrument of
unvarying routine and magnificent sameness."
Books came by packages and packages. Such books! The eyes of the two
girls gloated over them, as they helped Mrs. Barclay unpack; the room
grew full, with delightful disorder of riches; but none too much, for
they began to feel their minds so empty that no amount of provision
could be too generous.
"The room is getting to be running-over full. What will you do, Mrs.
Barclay?"
"It is terrible when you have to sweep the carpet, isn't it? I must
send for some book cases."
"You might let Mr. Midgin put up some--shelves I could stain them, and
make them look very nice."
"Who is Mr. Midgin?"
"The carpenter."
"Oh! Well.--I think we had better send for him, Lois."
The door stood open into the kitchen, or dining-room rather, on account
of the packing-cases which the girls were just moving out; then
appeared the figure of Mrs. Marx in the opening.
"Lois, Charity ain't at home--How much beef are you goin' to want?"
"Beef?" said Lois, smiling at the transition in her thoughts.--"For
salting, you mean?"
"For salting, and for smoking, and for mince-meat, and for pickling.
What is the girl thinking of?"
"She is thinking of books just now, Mrs. Marx," suggested Mrs. Barclay.
"Books!" The lady stepped nearer and looked in. "Well, I declare! I
should think you had _some_. What in all the world can you do with so
many?"
"Just what we were considering. I think we must have the carpenter
here, to put up some shelves."
"Well I should say that was plain. But when you have got 'em on the
shelves, what next? What will you do with 'em then?"
"Take 'em down and read them, aunt Anne."
"Your life ain't as busy as mine, then, if you have time for all that.
What's the good o' readin' so much?"
"There's so much to know, that we don't know!"
"I should like to know what,"--said Mrs. Marx, going round and picking
up one book after another. "You've been to school, haven't you?"
Lois changed her tone.
"I'll talk to Charity about the beef, and let you know, aunt Anne."
"Well, come out to the other room and let me talk to you! Good
afternoon, ma'am--I hope you don't let these girls make you too much
worry.--Now, Lois" (after the door was shut between them and Mrs.
Barclay), "I just want you to tell me what you and Madge are about?"
Lois told her, and Mrs. Marx listened with a judicial air; then
observed gravely,
"'Seems to me, there ain't much sense in all that, Lois."
"O, yes, aunt Anne! there is."
"What's the use? What do you want to know more tongues than your own
for, to begin with? you can't talk but in one at once. And spending
your time in making marks on paper! I believe in girls goin' to school,
and gettin' all they can there; but when school is done, then they have
something else to see to. I'd rather have you raakin' quilts and
gettin' ready to be married; dom' women's work."
"I do my work," said Lois gaily.
"Child, your head's gettin' turned. Mother, do you know the way Madge
and Lois are goin' on?"
"I don't understand it," said Mrs. Armadale.
"I understand it. And I'll tell you. I like learning,--nobody better;
but I want things kept in their places. And I tell you, if this is let
to go on, it'll be like Jack's bean vine, and not stop at the top of
the house; and they'll be like Jack, and go after to see, and never
come back to common ground any more."
Mrs. Armadale sat looking unenlightened. Madge, who had come in midway
of this speech, stood indignant.
"Aunt Anne, that's not like you! You read as much yourself as ever you
can; and never can get books enough."
"I stick to English."
"English or French, what's the odds?"
"What was good enough for your fathers and mothers ought to be good
enough for you."
"That won't do, aunt Anne," retorted Madge. "You were wanting a
Berkshire pig a while ago, and I heard you talking of 'shorthorns.'"
"That's it. I'd like to hear you talking of shorthorns."
"If it is necessary, I could," said Lois; "but there are pleasanter
things to talk about."
"There you are! But pictures won't help Madge make butter; and French
is no use in a garden. It's all very well for some people, I suppose;
but, mother, if these girls go on, they'll be all spoiled for their
place in life. This lodger of yours is trying to make 'em like herself."
"I wish she could!" said Madge.
"That's it, mother; that's what I say. But she's one thing, and they're
another; she lives in her world, which ain't Shampuashuh by a long
jump, and they live in Shampuashuh, and have got to live there. Ain't
it a pity to get their heads so filled with the other things that
they'll be for ever out o' conceit o' their own?"
"It don't work so, aunt Anne," said Lois.
"It will work so. What use can all these krinkum-krankums be to you?
Shampuashuh ain't the place for 'em. You'll be like the girl that got a
new bonnet, and had to sit with her head out o' window to wear it."
Madge's cheeks grew red. Lois laughed.
"Daughter," said Mrs. Armadale, "'seems to me you are making a storm in
a teapot."
Mrs. Marx laughed at that; then became quite serious again.
"I ain't doin' that," she said. "I never do. And I've no enmity against
all manner of fiddle-faddling, if folks have got nothin' better to do.
But 'tain't so with our girls. They work for their livin', and they've
got to work; and what I say is, they're in a way to get to hate work,
if they don't despise it, and in my judgment that's a poor business.
It's going the wrong way to be happy. Mother, they ought to marry
farmers; and they won't look at a farmer in all Shampuashuh, if you let
'em go on."
Lois remarked merrily that she did not want to look at a man anywhere.
"Then you ought. It's time. I'd like to see you married to a good,
solid man, who would learn you to talk of shorthorns and Berkshires.
Life's life, chickens; and it ain't the tinkle of a piano. All well
enough for your neighbour in the other room; but you're a different
sort."
Privately, Lois did not want to be of a different sort. The refinement,
the information, the accomplishments, the grace of manner, which in a
high degree belonged to Mrs. Barclay, seemed to her very desirable
possessions and endowments; and the mental life of a person so enriched
and gifted, appeared to her far to be preferred over a horizon bounded
by cheese and bed-quilts. Mrs. Marx was not herself a narrow-minded
woman, or one wanting in appreciation of knowledge and culture; but she
was also a shrewd business woman, and what she had seen at the Isles of
Shoals had possibly given her a key wherewith to find her way through
certain problems. She was not sure but Lois had been a little touched
by the attentions of that very handsome, fair-haired and elegant
gentleman who had done Mrs. Marx the honour to take her into his
confidence; she was jealous lest all this study of things unneeded in
Shampuashuh life might have a dim purpose of growing fitness for some
other. There she did Lois wrong, for no distant image of Mr. Caruthers
was connected in her niece's mind with the delight of the new
acquirements she was making; although Tom Caruthers had done his part,
I do not doubt, towards Lois's keen perception of the beauty and
advantage of such acquirements. She was not thinking of Tom, when she
made her copies and studied her verbs; though if she had never known
the society in which she met Tom and of which he was a member, she
might not have taken hold of them so eagerly.
"Mother," she said when Mrs. Marx was gone, "are you afraid these new
things will make me forget my duties, or make me unfit for them?"
Mrs. Armadale's mind was a shade more liberal than her daughter's, and
she had not been at the Isles of Shoals. She answered somewhat
hesitatingly,
"No, child--I don't know as I am. I don't see as they do. I don't see
what use they will be to you; but maybe they'll be some."
"They are pleasure," said Lois.
"We don't live for pleasing ourselves, child."
"No, mother; but don't you think, if duties are not neglected, that we
ought to educate ourselves all we can, and get all of every sort of
good that we can, when we have the opportunity?"
"To be sure," said Mrs. Armadale; "if it ain't a temptation, it's a
providence. Maybe you'll find a use for it you don't think. Only take
care it ain't a temptation, Lois."
From that time Lois's studies were carried on with more systematic
order. She would not neglect her duties, and the short winter days left
her little spare time of daylight; therefore she rose long before
daylight came. If anybody had been there to look, Lois might have been
seen at four o'clock in the family room, which this winter rather lost
its character of kitchen, seated at the table with her lamp and her
books; the room warm and quiet, no noise but the snapping of the fire
and breathing of the flames, and now and then the fall of a brand. And
Lois sitting absorbed and intent, motionless, except when the
above-mentioned falling brands obliged her to get up and put them in
their places. Her drawing she left for another time of day; she could
do that in company; in these hours she read and wrote French, and read
pages and pages of history. Sometimes Madge was there too; but Lois
always, from a very early hour until the dawn was advanced far enough
for her to see to put Mrs. Barclay's room in order. Then with a sigh of
pleasure Lois would turn down her lamp, and with another breath of hope
and expectation betake herself to the next room to put all things in
readiness for its owner's occupancy and use, which occupancy and use
involved most delightful hours of reading and talking and instruction
by and by. Making the fire, sweeping, brushing, dusting, regulating
chairs and tables and books and trifles, drawing back the curtains and
opening the shutters; which last, to be sure, she began with. And then
Lois went to do the same offices for the family room, and to set the
table for breakfast; unless Madge had already done it.
And then Lois brought her Bible and read to Mrs. Armadale, who by this
time was in her chair by the fireside, and busy with her knitting. The
knitting was laid down then, however; and Mrs. Armadale loved to take
the book in her hands, upon her lap, while her granddaughter, leaning
over it, read to her. They two had it alone; no other meddled with
them. Charity was always in the kitchen at this time, and Madge often
in her dairy, and neither of them inclined to share in the service
which Lois always loved dearly to render. They two, the old and the
young, would sit wholly engrossed with their reading and their talk,
unconscious of what was going on around them; even while Charity and
Madge were bustling in and out with the preparations for breakfast.
Nothing of the bustle reached Mrs. Armadale or Lois, whose faces at
such times had a high and sweet and withdrawn look, very lovely to
behold. The hard features and wrinkled lines of the one face made more
noticeable the soft bloom and delicate moulding of the other, while the
contrast enhanced the evident oneness of spirit and interest which
filled them both. When they were called to breakfast and moved to the
table, then there was a difference. Both, indeed, showed a subdued
sweet gravity; but Mrs. Armadale was wont also to be very silent and
withdrawn into herself, or busied with inner communings; while Lois was
ready with speech or action for everybody's occasions, and full of
gentle ministry. Mrs. Barclay used to study them both, and be
wonderingly busy with the contemplation.